The Ghost of Bridgetown by Debra Spark

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Book review

A duppy, he explained, wouldn't enter a building without first counting all the grains of sand at the door, and, math whiz or no, your average duppy couldn't do that before daybreak, the hour when all duppies are due back at their graves. But the ghost of Bridgetown-- apparently, he hadn't so much as flinched at the sand. He'd stepped right over the pile and into the bar. He'd ordered himself a beer and insisted, once again, that he'd never died.

When Charlotte Lewin's grandfather offers to send her to Barbados on a special mission, he believes he is sending her on a much-needed vacation, following the death of Charlotte's sister. The mission seems simple enough: to return a long-forgotten, jewel-encrusted menorah to its rightful owner on the island. However, Charlotte soon finds herself navigating her way through unsettling racial tensions-- between white Jews, black Jews, and the native community.

In the oppressive Barbados heat where the body can't hide its own discomfort, Charlotte ends up sitting side-by-side at a bar with the ghost of Bridgetown himself. And when the startling ramifications of a bizarre parachuting accident threaten to unravel the precarious peace, it is Charlotte who struggles to find the answers. Her emotional entanglement with the people of the island leads to a search, not just to find a home for the menorah, but also for her own place in the world.

The Ghost of Bridgetown is a powerful second novel, a worthy offering to what the Boston Book Review calls Spark's "broad and devoted following of readers."